These Earthquakes Form Chasms We Cannot Cross
by 823freckles
Summary: Kate and Sawyer reunite after three long years apart. Spoilers up to season 5, no later than “This Place is Death.”


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When Kate sees Sawyer for the first time in three years, she is suddenly, acutely aware of the passage of time. She sees a glint of one or two grey hairs catching the sunlight. The furrow of his brow is etched deeper, and there is a hint of crow's feet beside his eyes. But it's the way he looks at her that causes the ache of the three years to ripple through her body at once like a shockwave. His mouth is set, his eyes narrowed. She used to look into his eyes and understand how someone could care for her. She saw her image as he saw it, mirrored back in his pupils as he held her close. Now his eyes are like a chasm in the earth, an impassable barrier back into his world.

There might as well be three years between them still. There might as well be the entire ocean between them as had been just three days earlier.

For a third night, Kate finds herself unable to sleep in her old tent on the beach. It's understandable after three years in a bed in the city that she now finds it difficult to sleep with only the sound of the ocean and the light padding of blankets, tarp, and sand beneath her. In reality, she can't sleep here on this beach without him beside her. The tropical air isn't cold but she shivers anyways. She rolls over, and gasps.

Sawyer sits on the ground beside her. She didn't even hear him enter the tent. She sits up, hesitantly, but he is on her in a flash, pushing her back to the ground. She welcomes the warm weight of his body on top of hers; she feels like he is the last puzzle piece she didn't know she was missing. He kisses her and his tongue wrapped around hers tastes like whiskey. The heat of it burns down her throat as if she were the one drinking.

She grasps his tattered shirt like a lifeline, pulling him closer. He pushes her hands away with a grunt and shoves her shirt up roughly. This man who was passionate but gentle with her three years ago is now gone, a battle-hardened and broken man in his place. The rough pads of his fingers push her bra up over her nipples, which he then takes between thumb and forefinger and squeezes, just a bit too hard for her liking. She gasps, and he growls at her, "Quiet."

She obliges him with a nod. The effort it takes to bite back her moans of pleasure as he kisses his way down her body cause her to break out in a sweat. When she feels his hot breath just inches from where she wants him, she breaks his rule and groans in frustration. He looks up at her, a ghost of a smile on his lips and a questioning look in his eyes.

"Please James. Please." She lowers her voice to a whisper, "I've missed this…thought about you…three years."

He grasps her hips and raises them to meet his mouth, his hot lips wrapping around her clit through her wet underwear. He is rough with her and she knows she'll be covered in bruises for days.

When he makes her come, she bites her own fist to keep from screaming. Her other hand reaches out, searching for his hair, something to hold onto as she rides out the waves of her orgasm. She wants to see him all, to touch him, to assure herself that he is real. That she, by proxy, is also real. But he holds her searching hands down in the sand above his makeshift bed of blankets with the grip of one of his strong hands. It rubs against her skin. It hurts and she deserves it. She hopes the skin on her wrists is red and raw and smarts tomorrow.

As he uses the other hand to awkwardly shove his own pants down his legs, Sawyer kisses her neck. No, not kisses, but sucks and bites all the way down her throat and the sensitive skin of her clavicle. Kate realizes that he is marking her, and the thought sends a bolt of electricity straight through her abdomen.

When he finally enters her, she nearly cries out in pain and joy. He covers her mouth with his and swallows the cry, his teeth bumping against hers. The chasm between them closes as they find the rhythm established three years before, her hips moving up to meet his as he thrusts into her again and again. She comes again, seismic waves followed by delicious aftershocks as his thrusts become erratic. When he thrusts one last time into her, she just barely hears the word trapped in his groan, "Kate."

He pulls out of her and she feels empty, too empty, but then he pulls her close and holds her to his chest. She watches his chest rise and fall. The moon shines through a gap in her old tent, and she sees the new scars on his stomach and arms, the ones she missed in her pampered life in Los Angeles as he and the others faced unimaginable horrors on the island. She can't stop the tears that fall onto his chest. She closes her eyes to stop her crying, and she finally sleeps.

In the morning, he is gone. He doesn't talk to her that day. He doesn't make eye contact. She understands that this is how it is between them now. She wants him and he wants her, but three years is the distance that separates them in the daylight.

They establish a pattern, if not a comfortable one, at least one that fulfills their needs. He is always gone by morning. A week has passed, or maybe two, when she catches him before he slips out.

The words taste acidic as they fall from her lips; "Don't go." She was always the one to run off after their trysts three years before. She always runs; she knows nothing else. But she has nowhere left to run but to him now. He pauses for a millisecond with his hand on the tent flap before he leaves, but he doesn't stay or even look back.

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End file.
